Rafael blanco

statement

​Gypsies found the remains of the past cultures in the Andalucian soil giving them all the tools to build a new way of expressing their deepest feelings into one art called Flamenco. Flamenco and Other Needed Poems is a project of appreciation to this courageous form of art, through several painting portraits of dancers in pure action. The purpose of this series of large paintings is to describe through the dramatic use of light on form, emotional physical expressions, and innumerable folds created from motion, the true language of flamenco.

What was meant before as a prohibited art performed exclusively by the gypsies, today has become the symbol of the Spanish culture, and furthermore, a main representation of the human expression. These portraits capture the grief that flamenco dancers express through their facials gestures, which could be defined as the natural and preeminent means for the human communication of emotions.

The faces of the flamenco dancers clearly mirror their emotions, reflecting a range of feelings over the course of a single performance. Nevertheless, the dance of the arms, hands , and fingertips is the very essence of the feminine dance. The female dancer uses various arm movements, rhythmically linked, flowing one into the other, forming continuous spirals that culminate in curving, meandering, and sinuous finger motions. Good flamenco dancers, besides having a faultless technique, are able to express through their bodies (use of non-verbal communication skills) flamenco's original purpose, to portrait the human being to his proudest form. And this can be easily seen in the radiant faces of those who are fearless enough to dance it.

As the gypsies found their necessary ingredients in the Andalucian soil to express their emotions; thanks to Flamenco, I found the human expression that weaves my canvas into being.